This work has true international scope, being a unique European/American joint venture that focuses on the state of the art in both diagnostic and therapeutic radionuclide methodology. Pertinent clinical applications are emphasized rather than attempting to cover everything included in the several large comprehensive texts available in our field. This "practical" approach should make it an essential guide to nuclear medicine physicians, technologists, students and interested clinicians alike.

Abundantly illustrated with more than 1,850 figures, this comprehensive monograph describes the experience gained through the treatment of patients with spinal tumors over a 25-year period. It covers clinical presentations and neuroradiological features of intramedullary, extramedullary, and extradural spinal tumors. Coverage provides step-by-step intraoperative photographs to describe surgical strategies. In addition, the book offers techniques and gives detailed statistical analyses on postoperative outcomes by focusing on postoperative complications as well as short-term and long-term results.

Electroporation is the forefront in tumor ablation. This book presents the basic principles and clinical applications of electroporation, including the latest research results and patient data. A comprehensive approach to the basic science behind the development of this ground-breaking technique and its introduction into clinical practice, the book discusses the entire spectrum of currently available reversible treatments, the emerging irreversible applications, and their impact on patient care. Clinical Aspects of Electroporation is the first book intended for clinicians on this extremely important and rapidly developing field.

'Samii's Essentials in Neurosurgery' contains selected papers written by internationally recognized contributors who were trained by Professor Madjid Samii in Hannover, Germany. The main topics deal with cutting-edge technology in neurosurgery, skull-base surgery, and specific peripheral nerve, spine, and vascular surgeries. The texts and a wealth of illustrations review and reinforce guidelines on the diagnosis and management of situations that readers are likely to encounter in everyday practice. This book will be of great interest to neurosurgeons, neurologists, ENT surgeons, neuroradiologists, and neurophysiotherapists."

This unique text/reference discusses in depth the two integral components of reconstructive surgery; fracture detection, and reconstruction from broken bone fragments. In addition to supporting its application-oriented viewpoint with detailed coverage of theoretical issues, the work incorporates useful algorithms and relevant concepts from both graph theory and statistics. Topics and features: presents practical solutions for virtual craniofacial reconstruction and computer-aided fracture detection; discusses issues of image registration, object reconstruction, combinatorial pattern matching, and detection of salient points and regions in an image; investigates the concepts of maximum-weight graph matching, maximum-cardinality minimum-weight matching for a bipartite graph, determination of minimum cut in a flow network, and construction of automorphs of a cycle graph; examines the techniques of Markov random fields, hierarchical Bayesian restoration, Gibbs sampling, and Bayesian inference.

Ultrasound in Medicine is a broad-ranging study of medical ultrasound, including ultrasound propagation, interaction with tissue, and innovations in the application of ultrasound in medicine. The book focuses specifically on the science and technology-the underlying physics and engineering. It examines the most closely related aspects of these basic sciences in clinical application and reviews the success of technological innovations in improving medical diagnosis and treatment. The book bridges the gap between tutorial texts widely available for ultrasound and medical training and theoretical works on acoustics.

In modern medicine, imaging is the most effective tool for diagnostics, treatment planning and therapy. Almost all modalities have went to directly digital acquisition techniques and processing of this image data have become an important option for health care in future. This book is written by a team of internationally recognized experts from all over the world. It provides a brief but complete overview on medical image processing and analysis highlighting recent advances that have been made in academics. Color figures are used extensively to illustrate the methods and help the reader to understand the complex topics.

Oncological imaging has thoroughly changed in the past decade, especially due to the introduction of PET and 18FDG. In "Positron Emission Tomography," expert referring specialists and professional imagers seek to help bridge some of the knowledge gaps in several oncological domains. The book s goal is to aid in the improvement of communicative competences: to communicate scan findings so that the referring specialist receives proper advice from the imager, and that, alternatively, the referring one provides the imager with appropriate clinical details to allow for a proper interpretation, and that the referring specialist is aware of the possibilities and limitations of the requested technology. While it focuses on FDG PET, other radiopharmaceuticals are covered as well, where appropriate. Written for the highly respected "Methods in Molecular Biology " series, this volume provides the kind of detailed description and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results.

Authoritative and convenient, "Positron Emission Tomography" serves as an excellent reference for oncologists, surgeons, radiotherapists, radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and pathologists desiring a stronger synergy within their vital efforts."

In this issue of Neuroimaging Clinics, guest editor Dr. Tarik F. Massoud brings his considerable expertise to the topic of Neuroimaging Anatomy, Part 1: Brain and Skull. Anatomical knowledge is critical to reducing both overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis in neuroimaging. This issue is part one of a two-part series on neuroimaging anatomy that focuses on the brain, with each article addressing a specific area. The issue also includes an article on Brain Connectomics: the study of the brain's structural and functional connections between cells. Contains 13 relevant, practice-oriented topics including anatomy of cerebral cortex, lobes, and the cerebellum; brainstem anatomy; cranial nerves anatomy; brain functional imaging anatomy; imaging of normal brain aging; and more. Provides in-depth clinical reviews on neuroimaging anatomy of the brain and skull, offering actionable insights for clinical practice. Presents the latest information on this timely, focused topic under the leadership of experienced editors in the field. Authors synthesize and distill the latest research and practice guidelines to create clinically significant, topic-based reviews.

This comprehensive and topical volume presents a number of significant advances on many fronts in this area of research, particularly emphasizing current and future biomedical applications of electromagnetic fields.

This book is designed to provide a foundation for physicians-in-training and a quick guide to further enhance the skills set of practicing interventionalists. It is a concise reference manual covering the major aspects of clinical scenarios, procedures, and techniques. Non-Vascular Interventional Radiology of the Abdomen expertly addresses the planning and execution of commonly encountered procedures, including organ specific biopsies, abscess drainage, urinary interventions, gastrostomy, gastrojejunostomy, and biliary interventions.

Computed Tomography gives a detailed overview of various aspects of computed tomography. It discusses X-ray CT tomography from a historical point of view, the design and physical operating principles of computed tomography apparatus, the algorithms of image reconstruction and the quality assessment criteria of tomography scanners. Algorithms of image reconstruction from projections, a crucial problem in medical imaging, are considered in depth. The author gives descriptions of the reconstruction methods related to tomography scanners with a parallel X-ray beam, trough solutions with fan-shaped beam and successive modifications of spiral scanners. Computed Tomography contains a dedicated chapter for those readers who are interested in computer simulations based on studies of reconstruction algorithms. The information included in this chapter will enable readers to create a simulation environment in which virtual tomography projections can be obtained in all basic projection systems. This monograph is a valuable study on computed tomography that will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the fields of biomedical engineering, medical electronics, computer science and medicine.

Useful in many areas of medicine and biology, Bayesian methods are particularly attractive tools for the design of clinical trials and diagnostic tests, which are based on established information, usually from related previous studies. Advanced Bayesian Methods for Medical Test Accuracy begins with a review of the usual measures such as specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive value, and the area under the ROC curve. Then the scope expands to cover the more advanced topics of verification bias, diagnostic tests with imperfect gold standards, and those for which no gold standard is available.

Promoting accuracy and efficiency of clinical trials, tests, and the diagnostic process, this book:

• Enables the user to efficiently apply prior information via a WinBUGS package
• Presents many ideas for the first time and goes far beyond the two standard references
• Integrates reader agreement with different modalities X-ray, CT Scanners, and more to study their effect on medical test accuracy
• Provides practical chapter-end problems

Useful for graduate students and consulting statisticians working in the various areas of diagnostic medicine and study design, this practical resource introduces the fundamentals of programming and executing BUGS, giving readers the tools and experience to successfully analyze studies for medical test accuracy.

Landmarks are preferred image features for a variety of computer vision tasks such as image mensuration, registration, camera calibration, motion analysis, 3D scene reconstruction, and object recognition. Main advantages of using landmarks are robustness w. r. t. lightning conditions and other radiometric vari ations as well as the ability to cope with large displacements in registration or motion analysis tasks. Also, landmark-based approaches are in general com putationally efficient, particularly when using point landmarks. Note, that the term landmark comprises both artificial and natural landmarks. Examples are comers or other characteristic points in video images, ground control points in aerial images, anatomical landmarks in medical images, prominent facial points used for biometric verification, markers at human joints used for motion capture in virtual reality applications, or in- and outdoor landmarks used for autonomous navigation of robots. This book covers the extraction oflandmarks from images as well as the use of these features for elastic image registration. Our emphasis is onmodel-based approaches, i. e. on the use of explicitly represented knowledge in image analy sis. We principally distinguish between geometric models describing the shape of objects (typically their contours) and intensity models, which directly repre sent the image intensities, i. e., the appearance of objects. Based on these classes of models we develop algorithms and methods for analyzing multimodality im ages such as traditional 20 video images or 3D medical tomographic images."

This book provides a contemporary reference to the science, technology and clinical applications of PET and PET/CT. The book is designed to be used by residents and fellows training in medical imaging specialties as well as imaging experts in private or academic practice who need to become familiar with this technology and its applications. It is also for use by those whose specialties carry over to PET and PET/CT, referring physicians such as oncologists, cardiologists, neurologists and surgeons.

Developed as an offshoot/update of the "clinical practice" portion of the main book, edited by PE Valk et al, published in 2003 (Positron Emission Tomography: basic science and clinical practice), this offshoot covers the second half of the main book only, dealing with mainly the clinical research and practice. Most of the book comprises chapters updated from the "Clinical practice" portion of the main Valk book. It contains 6 brand new chapters and 22 completely revised and updated chapters from the main Valk book.

Quantitative coronary angiography has become an invaluable tool for the interventional cardiologist, providing objective and reproducible measurements of coronary artery dimensions, which can be used to study progression or regression of coronary atherosclerosis, as well as the immediate and long term effects of percutaneous interventions. Until recently, this powerful imaging technology was confined to a small number of so-called high level institutions. Fortunately, with the development of digital cardiac imaging equipment and adaptation of cine-angiographically based computer software for on-line use in the catheterization room, quantitative coronary angiography is now available to all interventionalists. This book is a timely guide for the impending QCA user, providing practical as well as theoretical and scientific information. A comprehensive evaluation of the clinical usefulness of QCA is covered, from the fundamental principles through experimental validation studies, application to clinical trials of a wide range of pharmacological and interventional therapies in the full spectrum of clinical presentation of coronary disease syndromes, evaluation of the therapeutic efficacy of various new devices for coronary intervention, together with extensive presentation of its physiological, functional and anatomical correlations, by comparison with other intracoronary measurement and imaging techniques. In addition, evolving theories and concepts in the ever topical restenosis phenomenon' after percutaneous intervention, based on serial QCA studies, are presented and discussed and a potentially unifying methodological approach to further study of this ubiquitous problem is offered. This book, thanks to the collaboration of many experts in the field of intracoronary imaging and measurement, provides stimulating, interesting and practical information, both for the academic scientist and practising clinician.

The application of 3D methodology has recently been receiving increasing attention at many PET centres, and this monograph is an attempt to provide a state-of-the-art review of this methodology, covering 3D reconstruction methods, quantitative procedures, current tomography performance, and clinical and research applications. No such review has been available until now to assist PET researchers in understanding and implementing 3D methodology, and in evaluating the performance of the available imaging technology. In all the chapters, the subject matter is treated in sufficient depth to appeal equally to the physicist or engineer who wishes to establish the methodology, and to PET investigators with experience in 2D PET who wish to familiarize themselves with the concepts and advantages of 3D, and to be made aware of the pitfalls.

Intracoronary ultrasound is a rapidly evolving imaging modality and the increasing number of published studies indicates that the technique is safe and provides incremental and more detailed diagnostic information than coronary angiography. The technique has the potential to study the pathobiology of atherosclerosis, to clarify the significance of angiographically equivocal lesions and has helped us to understand the mechanisms, effects and complications of catheter-based revascularization procedures. Combinations of imaging and therapeutic devices are being developed for both guidance and assessment of the revascularization procedure. Three-dimensional reconstruction of coronary segments is now possible in real time and provides the opertor with more detailed information on coronary pathology. In this monograph, leading experts in the field present the state of the art of all these new developments.

Despite the fact that images constitute the main objects in computer vision and image analysis, there is remarkably little concern about their actual definition. In this book a complete account of image structure is proposed in terms of rigorously defined machine concepts, using basic tools from algebra, analysis, and differential geometry. Machine technicalities such as discretisation and quantisation details are de-emphasised, and robustness with respect to noise is manifest. From the foreword by Jan Koenderink: It is my hope that the book will find a wide audience, including physicists - who still are largely unaware of the general importance and power of scale space theory, mathematicians - who will find in it a principled and formally tight exposition of a topic awaiting further development, and computer scientists - who will find here a unified and conceptually well founded framework for many apparently unrelated and largely historically motivated methods they already know and love. The book is suited for self-study and graduate courses, the carefully formulated exercises are designed to get to grips with the subject matter and prepare the reader for original research.'

In recent years, molecular imaging techniques have grown to be invaluable tools for molecular biology research and, to a more modest extent, clinical medicine. In Molecular Imaging: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers explore the latest advances in the field, describing a rich variety of practical procedures and methods for diverging imaging technologies. Chapters are divided into sections that cover the imaging of basic molecular and biochemical events, imaging in pre-clinical settings, and imaging in clinical settings. Composed in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology(TM) series format, each chapter contains a brief introduction, step-by-step methods, a list of necessary materials, and a Notes section which shares tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Comprehensive and ground-breaking, Molecular Imaging: Methods and Protocols is an essential handbook for students, established practitioners, and research fellows alike.

The mono graph contains 8 chapters, and their contents cover all principal aspects of the problem: 1. Introduction and brief his tory ofthe radiation problem and background information ofradiation hazard in the near-Earth and interplanetary space. 2. General description of radiation conditions and main sources of charged partic1es in the Earth's environment and interplanetary space, effects of space environment on spacecraft. 3. Basic information about physical conditions in space and main sources of charged particles in the Earth's environment and interplanetary space, in the context of "Space W eather" monitoring and prediction. 4. Trapped radiation belts of the Earth (ERB): theory of their origin, spatial and temporal dynamics, and experimental and statistical models. 5. Galactic cosmic rays (GCR): variations of energetic, temporal and spatial characteristics, long-term modulation, and anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) component, modeling oftheir dynamics. 6. Production of energetic particles (SEPs) at/ne ar the Sun: available databases, acceleration, propagation, and prediction of individual SEP event, statistical models of solar cosmic rays (SCR). 7. Existing empirical techniques of estimating, prediction and modeling of radiation hazard, methodical approaches and constraints, some questions of changes in the Earth's radiation environment due to changes of the solar activity level. 8. Unresolved problems of radiation hazard prediction and spacecraft protection, radiation experiments on board the spacecraft, estimating of radiation conditions during interplanetary missions. Space does not allow us to explain every time the solar-terrestrial and radiation physics nomencIature used in current English-language literature.

This book introduces the fundamental aspects of Radiation Protection in Medical Physics and covers three main themes: General Radiation Protection Principles; Radiobiology Principles; Radiation Protection in Hospital Medical Physics. Each of these topics is developed by analysing the underlying physics principles and their implementation, quality and safety aspects, clinical performance and recent advances in the field. Some issues specific to the individual techniques are also treated, e.g. calculation of patient dose as well as that of workers in hospital, optimisation of equipment used, shielding design of radiation facilities, radiation in oncology such as use of brachytherapy in gynecology or interventional procedures. All topics are presented with didactical language and style, making this book an appropriate reference for students and professionals seeking a comprehensive introduction to the field as well as a reliable overview of the most recent developments.

Leading clinicians and researchers from around the world review the full scope of current developments, research, and scientific controversy regarding the principles and applications of cardiac CT. Richly illustrated with numerous black-and-white and color images, the book discusses the interpretation of CT images of the heart in a variety of clinical, physiological, and pathological applications. The authors emphasize current state-of-the-art uses of CT, but also examine developments at the horizon. They also review the technical basis of CT image acquisition, as well as tools for image visualization and analysis.

The use of ultrasonic imaging techniques for diagnostic purposes in veteri nary medicine and animal science has lagged far behind their use in human medicine. In the area of domestic animal reproduction, diagnostic ultrasono graphy has a relatively short history. Reports on B-mode scanning first appeared as late as 1969, when Stouffer and co-workers used it for counting foetal numbers in late gestation sheep. After Lindahl had re-evaluated the potential of two-dimensional ultrasonography for pregnancy diagnosis in sheep in 1976, results of the first large scale field-trials by Fowler and Wilkins on predicting foetal numbers during the first half of gestation in sheep were published as recently as 1980. In this year also the first paper, by Palmer and co-workers, on ultrasonic scanning of the uterus and ovaries in the mare appeared. The improvement of diagnostics which was achieved by the application of this technique is illustrated by its present routine use in clinical equine practice and sheep breeding. Besides offe ring an accurate early pregnancy diagnosis in species such as the horse, cow, sheep, goat, pig and dog, ultrasonography enables the visualization of ovarian and uterine structures for the identification of both physiological and pathological conditions. In this way it replaces or supplements the more common diagnostic techniques used by the general practitioner so far. Ultrasonography has also opened several new lines of research for clini cians and research workers."

Over the past several decades, much progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms of electrical activity in biological tissues and systems, and for developing non-invasive functional imaging technologies to aid clinical diagnosis of dysfunction in the human body. The book will provide full basic coverage of the fundamentals of modeling of electrical activity in various human organs, such as heart and brain. It will include details of bioelectromagnetic measurements and source imaging technologies, as well as biomedical applications. The book will review the latest trends in the field and comment on the future direction in this fast developing line of research.